Monitoring regional sea ice of China's Bohai Sea by SSM/I scattering indexes

The Specific Sensor Microwave/Imager (SSM/I) data over China's Bohai Sea from 1993 to 1996 has been studied. Some empirical algorithms of data calibration/validation for sea ice, such as the method of the Atmospheric Environment Science/York University temperature brightness index (AES/YORK TBI) and ocean scattering index (OSI), are not well applicable to detection of regional sea ice such as the midlatitude Bohai Sea area. This paper presents a method of the scattering index (SI) and polarization index (PI) to identify regional Bohai Sea ice. Numerical results of vector radiative transfer for a model of a layer of sea ice over ocean simulate the relationship between SIs/PIs and sea ice depth and other variations. It is employed to categorize the graph of SIs/PIs for detection of sea ice.